


will you ever heave a sigh and a wish for me

by genesis_frog



Category: One Piece
Genre: Baratie (One Piece), Character Study, Gen, Nakamaship, Returning Home, a bit - Freeform, brook is old
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 18:08:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15868971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genesis_frog/pseuds/genesis_frog
Summary: Brook finds his heart aches with homesickness for a place he’s never been.





	will you ever heave a sigh and a wish for me

i.

 

They’re going _home_.

“What’s your home like, Sanji?” Brook asks politely while Sanji slices cheese for lunch (sandwiches, the way Robin likes them).

Sanji gives Brook a funny look from the corner of his eye. “Have I not told you about it?” he asks, bit surprised.

“No,” Brook answers. “There’s never been much room for reminiscing on this ship, has there?”

Sanji concedes. “I suppose not.” He pulls out a new knife - serrated - and goes to work on the bread that Jinbe had helped him bake last night when neither could sleep. “Well, I grew up in a restaurant that floats on the ocean--”

“A restaurant floating on the sea? Incredible!” Brook gasps, excitedly cutting Sanji off, then: “Forgive me, I…” Brook trails off when he sees Sanji smiling.

The grin on Sanji’s face is surprisingly large as he says, “I know, right? This old man, he had this idea for a restaurant in the middle of the ocean, so that people on the water could eat when they were hungry...”

As Sanji speaks, the sensation of this ship begins to swirl in Brook’s mind: rough wood rails prone to splintering, stains on the off-white walls, eye-watering steam fleeing the galley during mealtimes, air thick with the smell of spice. Brook finds his heart aches with homesickness for a place he’s never been.

“It sounds like the exact kind of place I would expect Sanji to grow up in,” Brook comments lightly, absentmindedly, “A little fancy, a little rough, wholly devoted to its craft...”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sanji demands, face a bit pink, and Brook can’t quite tell if he’s joking or not.

 

ii.

 

Brook hadn’t truly had a home to return to in a very, very long time. He didn’t especially mind that the Straw Hat Victory Reunion Tour, as he liked to think of it, was only going through the East Blue after the Grand Line (after all, Chopper, Franky, and Jinbe were all raised in the Line, Robin had no home to return to, and the rest of the crew were East Blue natives).

It’s night, a chilly one, and it reminds him of a place left long behind. Brook strums a few familiar chords on his guitar, sings a quiet lullaby from his childhood under his breath to the wind. Maybe if he gives the wind a song, it would carry his offering to the ones he used to love.

Brook’s home was an island in the West Blue ninety years ago, an unremarkable place save for its tight-knit community and love of music. He could no longer name the faces, or face the names, and some nights he placed them on a musical pirate ship instead of an island, and Brook feels so, so old.

It has been almost a hundred years, and those people no longer live, and that island is not the same. Brook knows this like he knows the sound of Laboon’s voice (that is to say, in his _soul)_. He died, and the Rumbar Pirates passed on without him, his hometown continued to farm fields and make music, and the world turned on without him. There is no home for the skeleton who remains.

Brook’s home is like his soul, he decides, sitting on a dark deck at night, beneath the East Blue stars _(he doesn’t recognize these constellations, a hemisphere away from everything he knew before)_. His home floats around the world; his music is home, his crew is home, his whale is home. His home is the history he lived, a hermit’s habitat.

Despite it all, he still wonders if the West Blue would welcome her wandering son home again.

 

iii.

 

They make a pit stop at Loguetown and it’s a disaster, everyone is terrified of the crew of an Emperor and try as they might, their ship (and half the crew) are too distinctive to properly disguise. Brook understands that he is a skeleton, that skeletons are scary, and the East Blue doesn’t see too many Devil Fruit users, so he agrees to stay on Sunny.

He sits on deck pretending not to notice the pair of Marines on the dock, holding their guns in a death grip and keeping a close eye on him. Brook thinks to himself, “nothing is wrong, and I am waiting for my friends,” he sips his tea, and he contemplates how blue the sky is in this ocean.

The sky in the East is aqua-blue and, near the horizon, almost white; it casts the ocean in a crystal sheen, almost warmer than the Grand Line's water. He thinks, then, of how beautiful Sanji’s Baratie must look, in whites and blues and golds against such a beautiful backdrop. He can feel Sanji in this ocean; he can feel meditative Zoro, and warm Luffy, patient Usopp, meticulous Nami. Or maybe, it is that Brook can feel the East Blue in them.

Brook feels homesick for a place he has never been, and for a place he left behind.

 

iv.

 

Sanji has been buzzing excitedly ever since they left Loguetown, as much as he tried to deny it; his hands would shake as he tried to light a cigarette, his legs felt like jelly, his arms hardly behaved (it was a wonder he didn’t hurt himself).

Sanji finishes putting together the mid-morning snack and delivers it to the crew - leftover sandwiches for Robin and Nami with some fresh ingredients added, a refreshing citrus drink (which Nami had taught him to make) for Jinbe, and rice balls for the rest.

In the lounge, Brook receives his share last. “I’ll take the broken piece,” he informs Sanji secretly, like an inside joke, picking up a rice ball that looks as if Luffy had accidentally smashed it.

“That’s the only one left,” Sanji responds in turn, and the two laugh softly.

Brook pats the seat beside himself. Sanji sits.

“Are you excited to be going home?” Brook asks.

“I… yes? No,” Sanji stops, then settles on “Maybe? I’m so happy to see everyone again, don’t get me wrong, but…”

“Once you leave, it’s never the same, right?” Brook suggests, and Sanji nods. “I know that all too well.”

“I left my home over fifty years ago,” Brook starts. He takes a bite of his rice ball and keeps speaking around the food in his mouth. “When I was alive, perhaps I would have gone home, too. Now I wish I had. But fifty years is a long time, and I don’t suppose there’s a reason to, anymore. Everyone I knew would certainly be dead. With all that has changed, I doubt I would even recognize the place anymore.”

Brook pauses.

“But your Baratie, she still has all of the people you love on her, and she’s waiting there for you. They’re waiting for you. And the chef raised you there, yes? You were the sous chef? Sanji, I can’t help but feel as if no matter how long you leave, the Baratie can never be rid of you.”

Sanji is quiet. He wraps an arm around Brook’s bony shoulders and pulls him into an awkward side hug. “Thanks,” he says, and Brook knows he means it.

 

v.

 

They’re going _home_ , and how it happens is this:

To most of the crew, Sanji acts like he hates the thought of returning to the Baratie. He grumbles and gripes about _Patty_ and _Carne_ and _the shitty geezer_ , how much he hated being stuck on that boat. (Luffy either forgets to, or chooses not to, mention Sanji’s refusal and eventual tear-stained farewell.)

The Straw Hats tease Sanji, poke fun at his red face and his denial of any affection for the place, but they overlook the slight tremor in his right hand, pinching a cigarette tight between his fingers.

Jinbe brings Sunny to a graceful, gracious stop alongside the Baratie with the practiced ease of an expert helmsman, and for all his bellyaching, Sanji launches off the ship and races inside to see his father again.

The Baratie is more beautiful than Brook ever imagined.

**Author's Note:**

> i had this mental image of sanji acting like he didn't want to go home and then just running straight to zeff and hugging him, and when i tried to write it, brook took over and it became like, a nakamaship fic for sanji and brook? which i. definitely was not expecting.
> 
> "i'll take the broken piece" was a thing my great-grandmother did, she usually volunteered to take the cookie or cracker or what have you that was broken. my mom says this a lot and she's been saying it often recently and i couldn't help but make brook say it, because i feel like he would
> 
> song title is from farewell to nova scotia [(specifically the dan zanes version)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AB4TlQfJqY)


End file.
